Seemingly out of nowhere, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has burst onto the political landscape as potentially the first woman vice-president in American history alongside Senator John McCcain. Sarah Palin's stances on issues make her a key ally of faith voters that comprise a large bloc of the Republican base. Palin opposes abortion rights and gay rights, but supports creationism in public schools in addition to evolution.

Her views on these issues and others have quickly endeared Palin to the right wing of the GOP according to reports.

The choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate was widely seen as an attempt to attract disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. Surprisingly, perhaps, Politico.com reports that First Lady Laura Bush has warned the party that (almost) brought you Hillary Clinton against sexism toward Sarah Palin saying, "The other side will have to be particularly careful because [sexism is] something we all looked at."

Speaking of sexism, early polling shows that men, more than women have been attracted to Palin's candidacy. Palin, the second beauty queen to stand beside John McCain (the first being his second wife, Cindy), garnered 58% approval from men (23% disapproving), while only 48% of women approved and 30% did not. View complete stats on the gender divide here.

Questions of gender aside, Palin's biggest contribution to the McCain campaign must be her appeal to faith voters. We previously reported that Democrats reached out to Evangelicals at the Democratic National Convention, but with the addition of Sarah Palin, John McCain may be poised to carry a majority of religious voters.

In the upcoming presidential election, many issues will be at stake: the economy, energy, national security, gender, race, the appointment of Supreme Court justices, and on it goes. Yet even amid the many crucial issues at stake in this elections, comments here have revealed that some Spectrum readers plan to vote on single issues (torture, abortion, the war, homosexual rights).

With so much to consider, what issues should be priorities for people of faith?